GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Four of the stars of TBS’s new hit television sitcom “Sullivan and Son” will be taking the Dr. Grins stage for one night only on Monday, Aug. 4 at 7:30 p.m.

Steve Byrne leads the group of comics that includes Roy Wood Jr., Owen Benjamin and Ahmed Ahmed – headliners in their own right who all also play characters on the TV show.

The plot of the comedy, which airs on Tuesday nights at 10 p.m., centers around Byrne’s character Steve Sullivan, who also happens to be a man of Irish and Korean heritage, that decides to leave New York and move to Pittsburgh to carry on the family tradition of owning the neighborhood bar. The family bar isn't always family friendly and delivers politically incorrect humor that “only your friends and family can get away with.”

I spoke with Byrne on his "one day off from six months of filming and six months of touring" at his home in Pasadena and asked him about the past year.

The television show is based very closely to Byrne’s life - the lead character’s professional life is going well but he's a wreck personally, which is how he felt at the time he created it. He created characters based on facets of his stand-up comedy and also directly from those close to him in life.

“My mother actually thinks she should get a cut or a percentage because we use her actual name in the show,” he said. “That’s not a joke. She really thinks that. I keep wondering if she’s going to sue me.”

The political incorrectness may surprise first-time viewers of the show. Even Byrne was surprised at what the cable network allowed them to get away with.

“We were very surprised,” he said with a laugh. “Every week we would turn in a script thinking this would be the week they would pull the reins in on us, but for the most part they haven’t. It’s almost like the kind of humor you would see on ‘The Simpsons’ or ‘Family Guy’ where it really does cross the line of absurdity and you can get away with that with a cartoon. But we get away with it and it is kind of a reflection of my humor in stand-up.”

“When I wrote the television show, I wrote the types of guys I wanted on the show but I never thought we would go three for three in casting them,” Byrne added. “Once the show got picked up, we all looked at each other and decided to tour. It’s been nothing but fun. Some people don’t know us as comics and it’s been fun to see the crowds grow larger.”

The comedy tour is not a “character-driven” show but rather each comic’s personal stand-up routine. The four comics join on stage at the end of the show for some improvisational comedy.

Byrne has spent an extraordinary amount of time with the other three due to the schedule of filming and touring. I asked him who the worst of his colleagues was to tour with.

“We are joined at the hip and I love them,” he said with a laugh. “We’ve never had any major blow ups but probably Ahmed. We go from airport to airport and go through TSA with a guy named Ahmed Ahmed. So basically his nickname has become ‘male assist’ because you just know he’s getting screened. That is definitely his specialty. We wave at him and say ‘We’ll see you at the show….maybe? Just try to get to Cleveland.’”

Byrne, an avid Pittsburgh hockey fan, said he considered using Detroit as the city the show would be based in, but at the end of the day decided to “write what you know” and used Pittsburgh where he grew up and lived for many years.

While he is working on his fourth one-hour special, he says today will be a complete day off.

“I’ve just returned from Whole Foods with a T-bone steak so I’m going to grill it up and try to raise up the testosterone level as I’ve already hung out with my wife and daughter, who demands that we watch “Frozen” and sing “Let it go.” She’s obsessed - just like every other young girl.”

Tickets to the Sullivan and Sons Tour show are $20 and are available for purchase in advance at www.thebob.com or at the door. Dr. Grins is located on the third floor of The B.O.B., 20 Monroe Ave. NW, in downtown Grand Rapids.